


Follow your Fire

by Darling_Dixon08



Category: Impractical Jokers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 20:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darling_Dixon08/pseuds/Darling_Dixon08
Summary: Brian runs into his first love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song -Follow your Fire by Kodaline

“holy shit, is that Samantha?!" Sal pushes me then Murray, to get our attention.

"What? Where?" I ask, my eyes vigorously searching the park for the familiar face. Sure enough, a few feet away was my old high school girlfriend, my first love. It's been over 20 years since I've seen her but she's as beautiful as ever. Her hair falls down to her elbows and she has a sun kissed tan, one you would never get in New York. Her head is down and she's engrossed in a book, her head bobbing to a beat as I spot headphones in her ears.

Flashback  
"Brian, music is way better then comic books! There's no arguing!" Samantha argues, then starting to sing a Neil Diamond song at the top of her lungs.

I push her gently, our feet dangling off the edge of a bridge. "How can you say that? Comic books take you into another world."

"So does music!" She pushes back, verbally and physically.

"Yea, for like 3 minutes. Comics go on for so long. They literally go on for years!" I argue back.

She shakes her head "but you can relate to music, connect to it. That three minute song can tell your entire life story. You can't relate to a comic book that way."

I quickly interject before she could say more "yea, you can! Uhm Superman, anyone who was ever adopted can relate to him." I point out.

"Which is great for that population of people but what about others? There's literally a song for everyone out there. Even the same song can mean different things to different people." She continues to argue.

"There's no way I'm going to win this argument, is there?" I ask her.

She shakes her head and gives a heavy "nope!"

"Fine, I'll let you win. For now." And I lean in to kiss her.

Present Tense  
"Hey, give us 15?" Joe calls out to Peter, our executive director.

"Everyone take 15!" He calls out loudly, everyone around starting to chat and scatter for the short break.

I look at Joe "what are you doing?"

"I got you time so you can go say hi to her, maybe get her number so you two could catch up." He replies to me.

I shake my head "naw, man. I'm not going to ask her out, what if she's married?"

Murray says "what if she's not?"

I go to respond to his question but Sal adds on "dude, you've always wondered what she's been up to. You don't need to ask her out but just go see if she wants to catch up!"

I shrug, do wanting to know what she's been up to all these years. "Fine." I grunt and Joe and Murray give me some pats on the back while Sal gives me some words of encouragement I can't hear over the sound of my heartbeat. I walk slowly over to where she is, and she doesn't catch me standing there, too enthralled with what's in front of her. I take a seat next to her and before I could tap her on the shoulder I spot what she's reading. It's not a book, it's a comic book. A classic Batman comic. I smile, and all my fears melt away "whatcha got there?" I say a bit loudly as I tap her shoulder.

"Oh, it's actually an original Ba—" but she stops speaking when her eyes meet mine "no way, Brian Quinn?" She asks, making sure it's me. I nod and smile and she throws her arms around me "holy shit! Hi! It's so good to see you!" She squeezes me tightly and I reciprocate her hug.

"How have you been? It's been a long time." I say as she finally lets me go.

I see her wipe a tear from her eye but ignore it, figuring the sun was too bright. She answers "a long ass time! And I'm good, just taking a break from working at the moment. How have you been? Ive heard something about you and the guys being big TV stars now."

I smirk and chuckle while shaking my head "I don't know about big but yea, we have a TV show. And I've been good, it's great to see you."

She nods her head and agrees "it really is! Are you with the guys now or just taking a stroll by yourself?" She asks.

I wave the guys over and they all come hustling out to say hello. They've all gotten along with Samantha when we were younger so it was a happy reunion for everyone. After everyone gets a hug, she asks each how they're doing. Joe explains how he's married with kids and then she's asks if the rest of us do as well. Murray answers "nah, the rest of us are still single. Come on, does that surprise you?"

She smiles but points to him "not for you" and we all laugh.

Sal then asks "how about you? Married, kids?"

She smiles and shakes her head "none of the above actually."

"Wow, that's surprising." Murray comments.

Before anyone of us could say anything our director calls out "guys, we gotta start!"

"Oh, are you guys working?" She asks, looking around a bit confused now.

Joe answers "we are, sorry. It was so great to see you Samantha!" He leans in for another hug "don't be a stranger."

"I won't, thank you." She hugs back. Murray and Sal hug her next and head off, leaving us two alone again.

"Hey, would you wanna grab dinner sometime and catch up? I'd love to hear all about your TV adventures." She asks before I could ask her.

I nod "I'd love nothing more then to get dinner. Here, give me your number and I'll text you." I pull out my phone.

She lists off her number then says "but I don't text, so call me instead?"

"Of course" I insist making a mental note of that as I put my phone away "I'll call you later tonight." I lean in and give her a hug "see you later Sam."

"Later BBQ!" She returns her nickname with my nickname and I chuckle as I walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

I meet Samantha at a diner back in Staten Island the next night. She arrives a few minutes late and I stand up to greet her with a hug "somethings never change. Sorry for being late!" She hugs me back.

I assure her it's fine "it's not a problem. I can't believe you're back in New York. The last I heard you were living in Australia." I say to her as we sit across from one another "are you still there or somewhere else now?"

"I'm actually back in New York!" She returns "been back a few weeks, Australia was great but nothing beats New York."

"Ain't that the truth" I return with a smile "well, I'm glad you're back and we can catch up. How long has it been?" I ask rhetorically.

She returns "well, pretty much since your prom weekend so what was that, 24 years ago?"

I nod "yup, that's about right." I say. I try to read her face, to see if she brought it up out of sadness or anger but she just seems happy to be here.

"Hi, are you ready to order?" the waitress comes over to ask us.

"Oh uhh, she just got here. We'll probably need some more time." I say to the women standing above us.

She shakes her head "no, no, I'm ready. I'll take a burger, no tomato and instead of french fries i'll take a side salad." The waitress nods and writes down her order so I order my own burger. When she walks away, she asks me "so, you and the guys are on a show? Please, tell me all about it! That's incredible, I don't think I ever laughed as hard as that night in Murray's backyard."

"That was the best night ever!" I laugh and agree with her, but then I go on and explain about how Impractical Jokers came to be. "And here we are, 8 seasons later."

"Wow, that is incredible. I can't believe I had no idea all these years. I'm so proud of you BBQ, I knew you'd make it." She says to me after finishing a bite of her burger.

Our food came awhile ago and I've been going on and on about our show the whole time. I've rarely eaten any of my food as I talked and she listened. So now, it's my turn to get her to talk "what about you? Whats been going on with you, I knew you went off to school in California but what happened from there?"

She sighs, but tells me a shortened version of her travels "the first two years were fun and great but something seemed to be missing. I went off and studied abroad in Spain and absolutely fell in love with traveling. I transferred my credits and finished school in France. I lived in a few cities after all that before I ended up in Brisbane the last 10 years."

"And work, what have you been doing for work?" I ask her next, a bit curious as to how she's been able to travel like that.

She blushes a bit, something I find so cute and attractive but she says "well, I've written a few things here and there."

"Like books?" I ask her, not sure what she meant.

She shrugs "not books, no. I actually write songs." She tells me.

I smile wide, feeling stupid for not have figuring that out sooner "of course you do, that's incredible! What kind of songs, would I know any? I don't know how I didn't know about this."

She pushes her plate forward, done with her food "welllllll, I use a pen name so if you did know the song you wouldn't know it as me who wrote it."

"What?! Come on, you have to tell me. What have you written?" I push her, really wanting to know. She always loved music, and I am not a bit surprised she composes songs.

She shakes her head "no, no. I haven't written in a few years now, and I've kept a low radar my entire career."

"Okay, okay. You don't have to tell me BUT" I point to her "I will scour all albums released within the last 20 years and figure out what pen name is yours and listen to your work."

"Good luck!" She smiles and takes a sip of water from her straw with a grin.

I ask her next "well, what brings you back to New York?"

She tells me "I don't even know if I want to tell you, this is kind of weird being here and talking to you of all people."

I sit back, not sure what she means by that. Maybe she really is still upset about our breakup.

FLASHBACK:

"Samantha, we gotta talk." I say to her the night after prom.

She bounces over to me, her full glass of wine almost tipping over "what's up beeeebeeeq?" She drags out my nickname.

"You're drunk? Already?" I ask her, not wanting to do this if she is. She plops down onto my lap. It's Sunday afternoon, everyone just waking up about two hours or so ago from the second night of prom weekend.

She leans into my ear "not one bit, but everyone else is pretty wasted so I figured I'd blend." She then suckles my ear, pulls away and winks at me.

I exhale and bite my lower lip. Samantha is freakin' amazing and I can't believe I am about to do what I am about to do. It's the weekend of my senior prom, and Samantha is the only undergrad (as a sophomore) who went to our prom. We've dated for almost 2 years, having met at her freshman orientation get together between our two schools. I was dared to ruin the pledge of allegiance by my fellow drama mates. We were there for a performance, our two schools working together for a few extracurricular activities. She overheard my friends daring me and quickly wrote down a change of lyrics for me to sing and passed them to me just as I went up and stole the microphone. Afterwards, I found her to thank her and the rest was history. However, I'm going to college now and everyone is telling me I should go into it as a single man. I love Samantha, truly and deeply. She gets me like no one else does but I can't help but wonder what college is going to be like. And what will it be like when I tell everyone I meet I have a girlfriend in high school? I don't want to wait the entire summer to do it either, I don't want to ruin her Junior year. "Wanna go for a walk?" I ask her, hoping to get away from the crowd.

"Sure" she beams and stands up, grabbing my hand and pulling me with her. We get to the beach and start to walk. She pushes into me "I hope you had fun at prom, it was incredible."

"You were the hottest one there Sammy, I couldn't stop looking at you the entire night." I tell her, truly meaning it.

She laughs and says "I know, you showed me enough Friday night." I chuckle, really starting to rethink this breaking up thing "what's going on with you, what's wrong?" She asks, always knowing how I am feeling. It's a beautiful quality she had that I always admired, until now.

"I uhmm, ugh, nothing. Nothing, I'm fine." I tell her, backing out.

She stops walking, so I do as well and she says "does this have something to do with you going off to college in a few weeks?"

"How do you know all of this?" I ask her amazed.

She pushes her lips together, then says "I'm not stupid Bry, I know you're going to college and will have these new opportunities and everything. I get it."

"You get it?" I ask her, not sure I get what she is saying.

Her eyes twinkle, but I am not sure if it's the glare from the moon or from her trying to hold back tears but she answers "you want to be single, see your options. I get it."

"You get it?" I repeat the same question as before. Is she doing the breaking up for me?

She puts a hand on my cheek "I uhh, I love you Brian. But I want you to be happy, I want to be happy and I don't want you to go to college and then you and I begin to hate one another. I don't ever want to not have you in my life."

I simply ask "really, you really mean all of us?" I question.

She nods "yeah, I want us to stay close friends. I can't lose you as a friend."

"You're fuckin' incredible." I grab her and pull her into a big hug "I love you."

"I love you, too." She replies, accepting the hug.

PRESENT TENSE:

"Fine, Fine" She says after a moment more of silence "I'm actually working on turning a comic book into a TV series." Her lips form into a sort of weird smirk, grin thing.

My mouth drops and I say "What!? Are you serious?! That's incredible!"

She bites her lower lip "yeah, its been weird but pretty fuckin' awesome. It's so surreal."

I nod continuously "dude, what comic is it? My buddy and I just wrote one, I can't imagine having to write it for TV though."

"Wait, you wrote a comicbook!?" She asks.

I think back to what I just said and kick myself in the ass for letting that slip "ahh, yeah. Sorry, I just.. I worked on it for years, its been quiet a feet to get it up and running."

"Wow Brian, that is impressive. Can you tell me about it?" She asks me. I give her some details about Metro and the process we took to get into print. "Well, I'm so happy to hear you wrote a comic. You always raved about comics, it's kind of what got me into this whole new job."

"Really?" I ask her, shocked that'd be true.

She nods as I pay the bill and she drinks her water. Once the waitress takes away our bill, she explains "I wrote so many heartbreak songs over the years and even a couple of love songs that I just needed to try something different. One of my friends is an artist for this awesome comic and we decided to work on turning it into a TV show. It kind of just took off from there."

I smile, truly happy to hear that "that's awesome! And what made you come to New York?"

"Her family is here and with nothing tying me to Australia it was just time to come back. I thought about how ironic it was to be back here working on something involving comics after all the back and forth we had about what was better, music or comics. Don't get me wrong, I looooovvvee music, but there is something to comic books that draws a certain person in, that can really help them through something. I'm really excited to be a part of that in a way." She tells me, being open and honest.

I shake my head, feeling like now is as good as time as any to apologize for my behavior 20 plus years ago "Sam, I have to say I'm sorry. Breaking up with you 24 years ago was so stupid and immature. I listened to everything my friends were saying and didn't listen to my heart. If I hurt you in anyway, I'm sorry."

She smiles, sliding her hand across the table "Thank you, that actually means a lot." She takes a breath then adds "I was devastated after our break up, it took me a long time to move on." She tells me and my heart breaks, never wanting that to happen. Never even knowing that. She goes on "in all honesty, most of my songs that have become hits have been about breakups and I wrote them based around ours."

"Really? Ahh, now I'm not sure I want to know which ones" I chuckle back, half sincere.

She goes on "but my two biggest hits are actual love songs about when we were in love. So I can't be mad at that. We were young, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what we had or how we moved on." She shrugs at the end, making me feel a thousand times better.

I ask, just to be sure after all these years "are you sure? Because I thought about us, about you, so many times and I feel like I was a complete ass. I wanted to break up and when I chickened out you did it for me.

She squeezes my hand again "you were 18 Brian, I was 16, it was suppose to happen that way. Breaking up is what made me get out and travel the world. I've been to so many amazing places that I don't know I would've have gone to if it wasn't for the pain I was trying to replace after our breakup. I don't regret it, we're both successful in our respective careers I'd say." She shrugs her right shoulder as she finishes talking.

"I guess, yeah." I swallow hard as I ask, daring to be bold "but what about your love life?"

She smiles and waits, then answers "there's always time for that."

I smile back and say "I hope so."


End file.
